


The roommate

by Verse



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Bonding over traumatic experience, Gen, Hellish crossover of doom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 21:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5841481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verse/pseuds/Verse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn't expect Sam, her mortal roommate, of all people, to understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The roommate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wodahn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wodahn/gifts).



Sam is, by far, Annabeth’s favorite roommate over the years. Favorite as in, genuinely _likes_ her, a mortal, rather than just tolerates her.

Most people think (and they are not, in fact, completely wrong) that it’s because they are pretty similar in personalities; they both tend to keep away from people for some reasons, they’re both way more physically strong that you’d think at first glance, and above all they can both be  _really_ passionate when they want. Be it architecture or nature, don’t mention it while they’re around or you’re in for a _long_ monologue.

But truly, Annabeth’s favorite thing about Sam is that she doesn’t _ask_ anything. She has a gray streak in her hair. That’s okay. She doesn’t ask. She has scars all over her body. That's okay. She doesn’t ask.

Just for that, it makes her Annabeth’s favorite mortal (behind Rachel, but still close by.)

 

* * *

 

_The air around her burns her lungs, her skin. She can feel the unbearable heat in her very core. All around her she can hear screams, screams of arai, screams of Percy, screams of Luke and all these people she let to die_

**_But she can’t see_ **

_NonononononONONNOONONONONONONONONONONONNOONNON_

“Annabeth! Wake up!!”

She brutally opens her eyes, breathless, tears in her eyes. Sam is hovering over her, a worried look on her face.

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. Trust me. You’re safe.”

She keeps repeating it, like a mantra, until Annabeth’s breath evens and her hands stop shaking too much.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

No. No. She can’t, she won’t understand, she can’t talk about it anyway- how do you even describe this place? What words can explain what your very eyes can’t even fully see?

“Do you want anything else? Water? Touch? Ipod?”

Yeah… Yeah, water would be nice. Anything but the Phlegethon sounds good right now. She gulps the liquid as if it were air.

 

* * *

 

Sam doesn’t mention it in the morning.

Annabeth is more grateful than she shows.

 

* * *

 

She finds a notebook on her bed, a few days later.

“I don’t know what you went through-” Annabeth almost argue that she got the wrong idea, she isn’t traumatized, but Sam is a smart girl- scars and nightmares don’t come from nowhere. Beside, it’s not like she’s judging or pressing for answers. “But it helps to write it down, sometimes. Trust me on this one.”

So Annabeth does.

 

* * *

 

Sam is right.

 

* * *

 

 

A few weeks later, Annabeth finds Sam curled into a ball in the bathroom.

She wants to say she’s surprised.

She isn’t.

(“Trust me on this one”, she had said. Annabeth knows how to read between the lines.)

 

* * *

 

 

“So there was a girl.”

They’re both sprawled on the floor, staring at the ceiling, at three in the morning. Neither can sleep. They'd stopped pretending they were a while ago.

“What about her?”

“She killed her best friend.”

And Sam speaks, of cold mountains and starving monsters, of deadly pranks and wildfire.

 

* * *

 

 

“So there was a girl.”

“What about her?”

“She fell into hell.”

And Annabeth speaks, of fire river and shattered glass, of old curses and lost friends.

 

* * *

 

 

Actions have consequences. That’s probably the lesson of this fairytale they’re living.

 

* * *

 

There’s a new note at the end of her notebook.

At first, Annabeth is a little mad, because her, don’t read other people’s stuff; but Sam assures her, she didn’t read it. She just added a little something.

 

* * *

 

 

“To Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Athena, Bearer of the Sky, Heiress of Daedalus, Retriever of the Athena Parthenos, returner from Hell. To Annabeth Chase, the girl who survived.

Don’t you ever forget how strong you are.

It’s gonna take long. It’s gonna be painful.

But you’re going to be okay.

Trust me on this one.”

 

* * *

 

(Sam, it turns out, never, ever lies.)

 

* * *

 

When she returns to camp this year, there is a little piece of paper tucked in one of her books.

 

* * *

 

“Whazzat?”

“oh, just somewhere I need to send postcards to.”

 

* * *

 

For once, when Annabeth leaves camp, she has something to look forward to.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ye i don't know either
> 
> Edit 11/16: fixed some typos


End file.
